Aramaic word · H6132

עֲקַר

'et'akaru

be uprooted

To uproot, pull out by the roots. Used of plants and, by extension, of dynasties, cities and peoples.

A Biblical Aramaic word, from the parts of the Old Testament written in Aramaic. Why Aramaic?

Appears once in the Aramaic of the Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) to pluck, be rooted up

1a) (Ithp'al) to be rooted up

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Daniel 7:8

Range of meaning

To uproot, pull out by the roots. Used of plants and, by extension, of dynasties, cities and peoples.

Against the English

KJV/WEB 'plucked up by the roots', BSB/NIV 'uprooted', YLT 'eradicated' (which comes from Latin for 'rooted out'). All are faithful. 'Plucked' can sound gentler than the Aramaic, which means a complete removal.

Used elsewhere in the period

Hebrew 'a time to uproot what is planted' (Ecclesiastes 3:2) and 'Ekron shall be uprooted' (Zephaniah 2:4). In Daniel 4:15, 23, 26 the related noun ʿiqqar ('root-stump') is what remains in the ground when Nebuchadnezzar's tree is cut down, a sign that his kingdom would be restored.

Where it appears

Daniel · 1

  1. Daniel 7:8 אֶתְעֲקַ֖רָה they were uprooted

    While I was contemplating the horns, suddenly another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like those of a man and a mouth that spoke words of arrogance.

    Here: 'They were uprooted', torn out by the roots. The image is violent and complete removal: these kings are not just outranked but taken out. The passive form does not say who does it, but 'before it' links their removal to the new horn.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.